


A Little Magic In The Madness

by Anonymous



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alcohol, Ambiguous Relationships, Avoidance Tendencies, F/F, Mild Sexual Content, Post-Timeskip, Resolved Sexual Tension, Semi-Canon Compliant, Unresolved Romantic Tension, We Don't Handle Our Feelings Well Around Here Baby, a sprinkle of angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-13
Updated: 2020-12-13
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:22:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28033839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: The nights Byleth comes to visit her are ones where she's reminded of what they can and cannot be.
Relationships: Edelgard von Hresvelg/My Unit | Byleth
Comments: 4
Kudos: 48
Collections: Anonymous





	A Little Magic In The Madness

_Tick. Tick. Tick_.

It’s cold. 

_Tick. Tick. Tick._

The tea in her cup is blushed. Not red, not brown, but some unhappy mix of the two. 

_Tick. Tick. Tick._

The table’s wood is cherry, the floor it trembles on is velvet-carpeted. 

_Tick. Tick. Tick._

“...Majesty.”

_Tick. Tick. Tick._

“ _Your Majesty_.”

Edelgard snaps herself back into attentiveness, her heart slamming into her ribcage with her start. 

Hubert has a pinch in his brow, green eyes turned on her with suspicion and she can see the question on his face before it leaves his mouth. 

“Are you unwell?”

No? She’s _fine_ but currently not mentally tethered to her _body_ which might be considered “unwell” but…

“You’re...tapping. Again.”

Edelgard stares pointedly at the teaspoon tucked between her fingers. The metal shimmers and she sees her own distorted reflection staring back up at her with dulled eyes.

She lets it clatter against her saucer, disrupting the maroon and gold patterns that run along the edges. 

“Should I send for your physician?”

“No. _No._ There’s no need for that.” She has to bring volume into her throat when it comes to the mixing of Hubert and her health. He and her doctor were toeing the line of matrimony and she wasn’t all too interested in trying to see how long the poor woman lasted in trying to keep piecing her emperor back together like a broken clock. 

Hubert probably doesn’t believe it, whether it’s because he’s Hubert and takes a spoonful of skepticism every morning with his breakfast or because she’s just that bad a liar remains undecided. 

He settles back into his chair with a deal of hesitation. It’s a respectful, unfriendly distance away from her own. They share their meals like this at her insistence, otherwise he’d be somewhere else, somewhere where maybe he didn’t have to watch Edelgard wander outside of her mind. 

She robs him of his mornings occasionally, picks them out of the pockets of his time and makes away with them like a clumsy thief. He’s polite and loves her in the uncharming, none too forward way he does things-and so he stays. 

He’s been there for her all her life, and will be until the day he inevitably discovers that he doesn’t _have_ to be anymore. The pedestal he’s lifted her onto has crumbled, shattering into a hundred stony pieces and he can’t rebuild it because Edelgard isn’t the person she was before; and she never will be again. 

They eat in silence. The sun fights against the thick blankets of ash colored clouds, finding its stride for a moment long enough to send faint blocks of light spilling into the dining room.

The peace is unnatural for them both, their lives linger in the stiffness of their backs and the routine sweep of their gazes. They were safe within these walls, but it took more than logic to settle battle-worn bodies; if they ever did. 

She has stolen his ability to relax from him too, but it needed the both of them for it to be done away with, and so she didn’t feel too guilty about that one. 

_Tick. Tick. Tick._

Her spoon is where she abandoned it, in the hollow of the saucer and glaring right back at her. 

_Tick. Tick. Tick._

_Take. Take. Take._

* * *

There’s a window in the furthest part of Edelgard’s chambers that she has a relationship with. 

It spans a length longer than her stature which makes it, to some degree, dangerous. It’s difficult to open and lets in far too much light in the mornings and not nearly enough at nights. She loathes that window with all the passion she figures a person would be able to hold for one. 

The irony lies within the fact that it is the most necessary part of the entire palace to her.

She hears the scraping before she sets into the room and there’s not a quick enough speed that she can get her door shut. 

She sheds her cape in one movement, tossing it into a corner in another. She crosses the room in five strides, each one earning her genetics a new curse. The window is opened in two seconds because a third would have been physically painful. 

The mop of blue tumbles in first, followed closely by the rest of a slender frame, knocking right into Edelgard’s legs. She doesn’t stumble. 

“Why?” She breathes the question out, desperately battling the quiver of her lips that try to pull themselves upwards. It’s like she’s tasted something incredibly sweet and she feels it sting at the inside of her cheeks in a way that was annoyingly pleasant. 

“It’s not hard for me. Besides, you know I like to surprise you.” Byleth uses her thigh for balance and works her way back onto her feet.

“And you know I dislike surprises.”

“Correction: you dislike _bad_ surprises. I’ll consider myself one of the better ones.” 

She leans against the wall with crossed ankles and a half-smile, as close to smug as she’ll show for. 

Every time she climbs in through the window she looks a little thinner, a little more lost. She comes with new scars etched lovelessly into her skin and fresh bruises blooming along her muscles like blueberry stains. She brings along a messy tangle of dark hair that’s artlessly knife-cut to the shoulder and paints shadows under her eyes that tell of nights staring into a fire instead of sleeping next to it.

She’s just as wild as Edelgard could never be, that devil-may-care attitude riding right underneath her skin but it’s not enough to find the spark to that oh so flammable rage of hers. 

Everyone else grew up, settled into the world and let themselves be carried with the river of time. 

Byleth...Byleth _didn’t_. 

“You should be more careful, it’s really easy to get into your room.” She rubs at the back of her neck and cools her voice as if she’s saying something profound. Edelgard finds it at the point just before cuteness gives into irritation. 

“I believe I’ll manage. Dual-Crested, light sleeper, and generally paranoid as I am.” She leaves the majority of the sarcasm banging in it’s cage when she’s around her but it was a fight Edelgard struggled to win. 

“That doesn’t protect against ex-tacticians with nefarious intentions, unfortunately.” 

“Oh? And what sort of mischief would said former tactician be attempting?” 

There’s a satchel hugged to her hip that she rummages through, stirring up the clicking of concealed objects and rubbing of leather. She proudly pulls free a bottle of... _something_ with a grin.

Edelgard sucks a breath in through her teeth, setting her face into something that she prayed held any fraction of authority. “Absolutely not.”

Byleth nods once and Edelgard watches her smile curl further into wickedness. She’s a demon sent from the deepest pits of the underworld with the moon to her back and the glint catching on the glass bottle of Edelgard’s downfall. “Yes.” 

“ _Byleth_. You know I don’t drink-”

“In polite company,” she interjects, pulling her dagger from her hip and coaxing the blade into the cork. There’s a _pop_ that seals Edelgard’s fate. “You don’t drink in polite company.”

They settle on the floor, offending the two plushy armchairs that stand to the side in the name of what Byleth considers a good idea. 

The bottle is passed between them like two laborers sharing a flask rather than the emperor and...and whatever Byleth was now. A mercenary. That’s right. 

It’s easy to fall into the silence that follows, sloshing the wine during their passes and leaving Edelgard to seek out the taste of Byleth’s lips on the rim for her entertainment. It’s _vile_ otherwise and leaves her chest constricting around a cough each time she sips at it, but the buzz starts to slowly set in-she supposes that makes it worth the gags. 

Their thighs brush, and neither of them have ever been particularly handsy, but soon it’s their shoulders, their arms, the rest of their sides are flush against each other. They’re oddly human, and the contact is one that they find their reassurance in. Edelgard finds a place in the nook between Byleth’s jaw and the rise of her collarbone, nestling her head there and pretending she doesn’t feel how the both of them are pulled taut like lyre strings. 

“You’ve been doing well?” Byleth breaks their peace awkwardly and she can feel the words hum in her throat. It’s silly to pursue small-talk considering who they are and the nature of the worlds they’ve lived in, but it’s easier to walk along the surface of conversation to start out with. 

“Yes. There’s not much more I’ll need to see after before I step down, it’s just a matter of trying to sort out the formalities now.” 

“Oh. That’s...good, isn’t it?” 

Edelgard carries a low note in response, easing the bottle from Byleth’s grip. She’s warm from both the wine and the body next to hers. “I never intended for my reign to last. It’s not something I wanted for myself, power, I mean.” 

“That makes you weird.” Byleth remarks, slumping more against the wall. “Most people are naturally power-hungry.”

“I’ve had my fill of it and decided I’d rather try to live my life as something other than a noble with a silver spoon stuck in my mouth. I’ve accomplished my goal, cleaned up the mess that followed, and now...now I’m _tired_ , Byleth.” 

She takes a long swig of the wine, letting it run a course over her tongue. Foul thing.

“What about you?” She swirls the bottle slowly, watching how the liquid breaks around its confines. “You’ve never been one for power either. It’d be hypocritical for you to call _me_ weird.” 

Byleth shrugs the shoulder Edelgard isn’t dominating. “That’s not true, but I’m weird for other reasons so you can have that much.” 

The sword of Seiros leans across her lap, and the pad of her finger expertly traces the patterns on the scabbard without even taking a glance at it. 

_Tick. Tick. Tick._

Their silence returns, heavy and tearing at the seams with everything that they hold to themselves for the sake of not ruining a good thing. Byleth has no interest in hanging onto the ledge of sobriety, apparently, and Edelgard’s always been a lightweight so she surrenders the bottle and lets Byleth take a soft stab at her liver. 

They sit there wrapped up in each other and let their minds get muddled with drink, Byleth might be talking about something but Edelgard isn’t listening much anymore. 

Her cloak is pried from her frame within the next few minutes because it’s _hot_ in the middle of winter next to her and she doesn't need the layer anyway, or at least that’s what Edelgard hopes she’s saying while pulling on the fabric. 

Byleth bats a hand at her but whatever fight she has is gone, lost to the way that Edelgard just happens to be good at undressing her. 

She’s whipcord muscle and scar speckled under it, moon pale and dusk-cloud pink where her fingers play along skin though she doesn’t remember telling her hands to move any closer. 

_Tick. Tick. Tick._

She wills the stupid mantra quiet but it reminds her that she’s not being honest. 

Because she _hates_ this. 

“Stay with me,” she mutters, falling over her words and her tongue is slippery against her cheek. 

“Just for tonight, okay?”

It’s like she spit in Edelgard’s face and she regrets opening her mouth because that’s always been the response, it’s the only one she’s ever gotten and the only one she ever will get. No amount of alcohol changes it, like it’s the only thing Byleth will never forget to say and she can’t water her brain down enough to find where she gets the _nerve_ to deny her. 

But Edelgard settles, and it's what she’s been good at. Complacency. Only for her.

She’s three years late with it, though.

Byleth had proposed to her with dead eyes and a trained grin. A lie that was crafted with clueless insincerity, dressed and garnished with all the pretty little twitches of her lips and served with her father’s ring as she professed her artificial affection. 

Edelgard wanted nothing more than to bite, and maybe she should’ve. 

She clambers onto Byleth’s lap and they stare at each other like the romanticism didn’t die the first night she decided she still wanted to be a part of Edelgard’s life. They still like to play the part. 

Her lips are hot and the kiss is sloppy, the disgusting wine is on their breath and Edelgard can’t complain because it’s made her inhibitions dull enough to silence the side of her brain that knows this is a bad idea. It’s always a bad fucking idea. 

They’re slow and inelegant, Byleth gropes at her over her clothes and giggles like she’s twelve when Edelgard flushes and shivers. 

She’s never been able to get inside her head. 

It’s hard when she’s been able to pick the locks on everyone else’s. They weren’t even difficult, not really. Byleth was the sole anomaly to the world, always managing things that shouldn’t be possible.

It had set Edelgard’s anger alight, at first. The way she threw everything on its head and left Edelgard helpless and yearning, knowing somewhere buried deep within that she would never be anything in the face of this strange woman they had plucked from fate’s hands, stung as deep as a lash. 

She hated her adeptness at anything she tried her hand at, hated how she was so lazily charming, hated her easy perfection, and above all, hated herself for not being able to pull from the cruelness of being smitten with someone she would never be able to have. 

And all that hatred being thrown together into one seventeen-year-old Edelgard’s body had repercussions; and she fell so fucking _hard_. 

Byleth urges her back down with a gentle hand and sucks a mark onto her neck, whispering something about how she missed her when she finally pulls away. It’ll stay there for a day or so and Edelgard will see it in the mirror tomorrow morning and shatter herself into a million shiny fragments. 

She bares her neck like she wants more, letting Byleth leave fleeting lovebites along her skin and her breath hitches when she adds the faintest hint of her teeth to the mix.

There’s no class, no rose petals or starry-eyed fantasies being brought to surface. They’re delirious and throwing themselves at each other because it’s the only thing either of them could ever do in the way of expression. 

The memory of her proposal had grown stale and bitter in the corners of Edelgard’s mind, it jolted itself to life in her doubts and sometimes she wanted to believe that maybe she had said it out of anything but obligation. 

Her hair falls into a white curtain around them when she leans forward, trying to catch Byleth’s lips and only finding the side of her mouth. She has a laugh bubbling to clean up behind her failure but if she keeps it up she’ll end up catching on the knot in her throat instead so she cuts it short. 

She gets them to their feet somehow and they stumble their way to the bed leaning on each other and collapsing into the sheets. 

Edelgard’s dress is gone first, and it takes both of them to struggle her out of it and throw it somewhere where she’ll scramble to find it when someone comes knocking on her door in the morning. 

She’s never been shy of herself but she didn’t like to be touched, not at first. Byleth had thrown her body into a whirlwind because she was so naturally physical, little bits and pieces of contact Edelgard would have snapped at coming from anyone else. 

Byleth works a slow magic, winding her up with featherlight touches and purrs slurred, filthy words into her ear. Edelgard doesn’t know where she learned to talk the way she did, but it's something practiced and there haven’t been enough encounters between the two of them for her to be able to speak with that amount of polished allure. 

She’s stupid for how it makes her heart shudder. 

It doesn’t take nearly as much effort to slip Byleth of her shirt, but they’re still intoxicated with each other and Edelgard just doesn’t want to stop _kissing_ her and that makes it take longer than it should. 

They’re fine until Edelgard brushes over the gauze wrapped wound on her torso, she sees the water in Byleth’s eyes being blinked away and is given a trembling smile that doesn’t lift high enough. 

“Hurts.”

Some quiet, resentful voice wants to tell her she deserves it for living so hard, for leaving her, but she holds her tongue firm and steady and keeps her eager hands away. 

Time exists somewhere outside of her room and they’re engulfed by a misplaced desire, a feral likeness springing into the warmth of her chest and pulling her by a thread until she ends up beneath the woman who didn’t love her. 

She lets Byleth spread her legs and tries to hold herself together.

She threads her fingers through a mess of blue and holds them there like she fears her own climax. Her hips stutter and she feels the drumbeat in her ribcage echo up into her ears.

Edelgard is weak to her tact and worries her lip hard enough that she tastes the unappealing flavor of her blood. Byleth always treats her as if she’s something delicate, they drown in their sex and its so much easier than trying to talk to each other like adults. 

She’s _good_ at it, even if they’re not sober-or maybe that’s why it feels this way-and Edelgard’s breath keeps getting hiked higher and higher in her lungs until she’s tensed up and has her back arching off of the bed. 

Byleth plays her, teasing her close and then yanking her back down, until Edelgard hisses a threat from between her teeth and she’s allowed to hit her peak. Her chest feels too full and her sex too tight and there’s warm tremors running up her spine and constricting around her heart until she’s panting and dizzy. 

Byleth stares at her with glossy eyes and a lopsided smile, clearly proud of her work. 

Edelgard doesn’t understand why; she’s easy to unravel. 

* * *

She hears the rustle of sheets and clothes at dawn. 

Edelgard’s mind is slow and groggy, and she really doesn’t have enough energy to roll herself over and face the mistakes she’s made. 

“I’ll, erm, come visit again if you want me to. Maybe without the, uh, wine next time.” 

_Don’t_.

“Sure, Byleth.”

And then there was that silence, the sort that was waiting to be filled with a specific sentiment that wouldn’t-couldn’t be brought to the lips of either of them. 

“El?”

Edelgard winces like she’s been struck.

“I’m sorry.” 

This gets her attention long enough for her to turn half of her body to meet the eyes that weighed heavy on her back. 

Sun breaks through the window that she’ll escape from, lighting her silhouette and turning sapphire to gold. She’s not reachable, too far from any part of mortality-despite the signs of it all over her body-and it doesn’t surprise Edelgard when the hand that had been moving towards her flinches and retreats back. 

She doesn’t have a response to the apology, and so she settles for an unsure nod and lowers herself back into the dying comfort of her bed. 

There’s no sound as she leaves, so Edelgard can pretend that she never did. 


End file.
